News, Community, and Historical Thinking

Islam, the Middle East, and the Arab World at the 129th Annual Meeting

2015 annual meeting attendees will have several sessions to choose from relating to Islam, the Middle East, and the Muslim world. Several papers will focus on Omani history, many will focus on Islam in Europe, and a few will take a larger view of the Middle East. Panelists will reflect on questions such as, Is there such a thing as a unified Arabian history? How was gender marginalization impacted by urbanization in 20th-century Middle East? How did 19th-century Europeans view Islam in relation to Judaism? Join us for these discussions and more, as we delve into the history of the rich cultures of the Middle East.

After exploring the Middle East and Muslim intellectual history in an academic context, head out for North African cuisine at Nomad (78 2nd Ave.), or if you’re interested in venturing further out, try Tanoreen in Bay Ridge (7523 3rd Ave., Brooklyn). Palestinian Zaytoun’s in Brooklyn (594 Vanderbilt Ave.) and Iraqi Moustache (1621 Lexington Ave.) are also highly recommended. And if you’re interested in shopping, check out Syrian artisan Joseph Hanna’s leather goods in Greenwich Village (33 Greenwich Ave.).

For more on the history of Arab communities in New York, read “Arab New York” in the November issue of Perspectives on History.

Back to Top

Comment

About David Egee’s memoir, Wake Up Running
A Must For Middle East History Departments and History Buffs!

Egee overcame his ADHD handicap to become the Director of the American Hospital in Beirut at the age of 35, dealing with such Middle Eastern luminaries as Yasser Arafat and Muammar Gaddafi. Later, he established hospitals throughout the Middle East, just before the region exploded in the 1970s.

David Egee’s life story, Wake up Running, features so many remarkable accomplishments: overcoming ADHD; Director of the American Hospital in Beirut: Career in Libya, Dubai, Lebanon at a time of international crisis; setting up hospitals throughout the Middle East; day-to-day Middle East intrigue.

“I wrote Wake up Running because it was a challenge and because it was there to write. Once, after I finished telling my daughter about negotiations with Yasser Arafat, my experiences in Libya, and the day that Muammar Gadhafi distributed his ‘Green Book’ to every single individual living in Libya and announced that Libya was now a Jamahiriya (1), she asked me, ‘Pappy, why don’t you write these stories down?’ “

Yours truly,

JJ Semple
Publisher

(1) The word jamāhīrīyah was derived from jumhūrīyah, which is the usual Arabic translation of “republic”. However, Gadhafi intended it to mean ‘State of the masses.’